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WRM Bulletin
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To download the bulletin in word format click
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free subscription
Previous issues
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“The worst immorality is a studied ignorance, a purposeful refusal to see or know” (Andrea Dworkin) ‘Development’
and International Financial Institutions (IFIs) together with the
main decision makers within them, often attempt to justify destructive
projects and policies on the proposition that neo-liberal economic
policy incarnates the one-way high street to poverty alleviation and
environmental protection. As the collection of articles presented
here demonstrates, continuing to uphold this proposition amounts to
“a purposeful refusal to see or know”.
Looking at
the history of IFIs as regards forests, manifests -more than studied
ignorance- a perpetual, systematic and institutionalized success in
withholding access to the decision making processes from indigenous
peoples and other forest dependent communities. Communities and peoples,
who are the rightful owners of these forests, constitute the most
directly affected by these decisions and who, as a group, represent
a great mass of impoverished populations.
The Mumbai-Porto
Alegre Forest Initiative comprises the uniting principles of a global
movement to ensure peoples' rights over forests and forest conservation.
It first surfaced from within the aspiration for ‘another possible
world’, during the 2004 World Social Forum and was reiterated
and revised during the 2005 Forum in Porto Alegre. It is a concrete
statement of principles solidifying the voices of a diverse coalition
of organizations and individuals working towards social and environmental
justice in forests.
Its point
of departure is that, “Indigenous peoples and other forest dependent
communities living in and using forests for their survival needs are
the true protectors and governors of these forests and enjoy inalienable
rights over forests.” [Principle #1)
It continues
attesting that, “The protection and conservation of forests
demand that their rights be ensured.” (Principle #2)
The first
two principles, first in essence as well as spatially, arise from
the firm understanding that forest issues are quintessentially social
and political, therefore requiring social and political, rather than
technical, solutions to confront them.
This broad-based
Initiative builds on the long standing demands of indigenous peoples
for self-determination and their rights over their ancestral territories,
as it does on the long experience with ‘development’ projects,
structural adjustments and aid conditionalities imposed by IFIs. These
bitter experiences bare witness to consistent calls for transparency
being met with increasing secretism (see article on AsDB) and cries
for greater access to the minimum survival resources met with more
pervasive exclusion from them (see article on WB). This movement for
social and environmental justice can, and will, not ignore these experiences
as it will not disregard the rights of indigenous peoples. It therefore
opposes “…any involvement of the World Bank, IMF, WTO
and other International Financial Institutions in policies and projects
than can affect forests and forest peoples.” (Principle # 11)
Expressing
the increasingly conscious desire to challenge the ‘global monoculture
of the mind’ and the one size fits all paradigms it professes,
the peoples’ integrating the Mumbai-Porto Alegre Forest Initiative
found the future on diversity, mutual acceptance and respect and the
right to choose the speed and means of ones ‘development’:
“The institutional mechanisms for the social control by forest peoples -including indigenous peoples and other forest dependent communities – over forests will evolve according to the socio-ecological and economic needs of the communities and will take separate shapes according to the varied cultural profiles of the communities in various parts of the world.” (Principle #3) To the greatest
extent the root causes of poverty throughout most the tropical world
are a direct consequence of the social, cultural, political and economic
transformations imposed by invaders from the ‘old world’
during colonization. The policies of International Financial Institutions
have perpetuated and continue to impose the socio-cultural ideological
constructs of the West on the pretext of the universality of these
values. In tropical forests, this process has translated in a prioritization
of the needs of western consumers and companies over local inhabitants
and needs leading to increasing social conflicts and a desperate race
to deplete tropical forest ecosystems. If there could be said that
some good can always be seen in the bad, it is that this long history
of ostentatious disrespect towards peoples and ecosystems has been
instrumental in creating a solid and united counter current with concrete
principles and focused determination.
We appeal to all of you join this process. The full text of the Mumbai-Porto Alegre Forest Initiative can be accessed at: http://www.wrm.org.uy/statements/Mumbai/index.html A brief commentary on the each principle is available through: http://www.wrm.org.uy/bulletin/91/MumbaiPA.htm If you want to show your solidarity with the principles of this movement or require further information please contact: antonis@wrm.org.uy By: Antonis
Diamantidis, e-mail: antonis@wrm.org.uy
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